Optical illusion extravaganza!

Here’s a great site for all of you who enjoy optical illusions. Lots and lots of links are provided.

Yes, here is a place that can be enjoyed by Believers and Atheists alike. Gays and homophobes, set aside your differences and enjoy these impressive illusions! Republicans, Democrats and even Green Party members can come together to enjoy the hundreds of optical illusions that are featured by this site.

My favorites: These scary/funny “fish”, these sideswalk chalk drawings, this quaint table top of impossible objects and these disappearing effects.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 20 Comments

  1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    Here's another similar page I just happened upon. Worth a visit just to see an extremely lifelike Escher-like rendition (second item). The top item evokes what is known as the stroop effect. Here's the site: http://www.tallrite.com/LightRelief/illusions.htm

    Here's another stroop effect site that will time you to demonstrate a dramatic difference in the time it takes to read a color word versus the time it takes to state the color of letters that spell a different color. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready….

  2. Avatar of grumpypilgrim
    grumpypilgrim

    Designers and architects often take optical illusions into account when creating their designs. The radiator grills on old Rolls Royce cars, for example, are actually not composed of parallel bars; rather, the bars are slightly curved to make them appear parallel. Likewise, the staircases and columns on ancient Greek buildings have slight curvatures built into them to make them appear to be parallel. Architects call it "entasis," and have been aware of it for millenia. (See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entasis/.)

  3. Avatar of Mindy Carney
    Mindy Carney

    I loved the faces, Erich – but I think they worked the explanation wrong because it states that the face on the right has MORE contrast and is recognized as male, and I believe it actually has LESS contrast.

    Yes? Or am I delusional? ;->

  4. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    Mindy: Doggonit, but I don't think you're delusional. The one on the left does have more contrast. The light colors are lighter and the dark colors are darker (relative to the light colors). That's what contrast does, right? So I agree with you . . . The illusion is nonetheless powerful.

  5. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    Dan: Wonderful optical illusion. I saw 16 circles pop right in. Stunning.

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